EMILIANO LASALVIA/AFP/AFP via Getty Images
Supporters of Milei celebrate outside his party headquarters in Buenos Aires on November 19, 2023.
CNN
—
Javier Milei has won Argentina’s presidential election in preliminary results, swinging his country to the right with a bombastic anti-establishment campaign against the backdrop of one of the world’s highest inflation rates.
His rival Sergio Massa conceded the run-off vote on Sunday night in a brief speech even before the official results were announced.
“Milei is the president-elect for the next 4 years,” Massa said, adding that he had already called Milei to congratulate him.
Preliminary results so far show Milei with over 55% of the vote (13,781,154) with more than 94% of votes counted, according to data from the country’s National Electoral Chamber, which has yet to declare an official winner.
Milei’s victory marks an extraordinary rise for the former TV pundit, who entered the race as a political outsider on a promise to “break with the status quo” – exemplified by Sergio Massa.
His campaign pledge to dollarize Argentina, if passed, is expected to push the country into new territory: no country of Argentina’s size has previously handed the reins of its own monetary policy to Washington’s policymakers.
Milei has also said he would cut public spending by closing Argentina’s ministries of culture, education and diversity and by removing public subsidies. He is a social conservative with ties to the American right; he opposes abortion rights and has called climate change a “lie of socialism.”
Milei’s victory will be closely scrutinized around the world as a potential sign of a resurgence of far-right populism. Milei has ties to the American right, and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had supported Milei’s candidacy
Public opinion polls had shown the two candidates neck-and-neck in recent weeks.
Matias Delacroix/AP
Milei, of the Liberty Advances coalition, arrives to vote in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, November 19, 2023.
Massa is a lifelong politician whose candidacy, unlike Mileis, had come to represent Argentina’s political establishment. Inflation has reached painful heights during his tenure – 142% year-on-year, but Massa tried to argue that the government’s current actions were already paying dividends, with inflation for the month of October 35% lower than in September – an argument that sees appeared to have failed to convince voters exhausted by a cost-of-living crisis.
This is a news story and will be updated.
Reporting contributed by CNN’s Stefano Pozzebon in Bogota in Atlanta.
